I was having a conversation with a friend several days ago and she told me something which really got me thinking. Talking about a recent appointment with her acupuncturist, she said that her therapist had told her that it was always around the time of seasons changing, that her bookings increased noticeably.

I found this so interesting. As a farmers daughter I have grown up with an understanding of the seasons rhythms, and the ebb and flow of life around those phases. From Spring through to the following seasons, the turning of the year encompasses everything.

As I have spent more time learning and experiencing our role within that natural cycle, I have been increasingly drawn to the Celtic Wheel, as a way of living authentically in line with this way of being and observing the passing of time. Those festival days, and times of celebration or observation within the wheel, help to align my life and honour the seasonal flow within it.

As it suggests the Celtic Wheel encourages us to see the year as a circle; part of a continuous matrilineal O within which we constantly evolve, revolve and rebirth. And rather than a linear line that suggests a long run, a fixed destination or an end point we must always be striving and pushing for, the pattern of our lives reveals so much more about the part that ebb and flow has to play within it.

The feminine truth in all of this, for me, is the understanding that rest and renew have their place within the cycle of life in flow with both the fertile and the full. A wheel which as it turns, as it waxes and wanes, reflects more accurately the four seasons, the four phases of the moon.

When I think about the seasonality of our lives in this way, that the Celtic Wheel isn’t just something external to ourselves in the nature beyond. It is actually something that lies deep within us as humans, and can define and guide the human experience, if we let it.

When we remind ourselves that we are nature, that as a woman for example, I have my own menstrual cycle, which follows the phases of the moon. The moon herself waxes and wanes, effects tidal sea patterns and so much more, has her own part to play within my own cycle – a waxing and waning of hormones and energy. In this way it becomes clear that as we observe and honour the changing seasons around us, so must we observe and honour those changing seasons within ourselves too.

We are nature all of us. And therefore every part of who we are, whether that be physical or spiritual, is effected by the seasonal flow of ebb and flow, birth rebirth, and the waxing and waning of who are within the own Celtic Wheel of our own lifetimes.

It feels like a relief to me to think of a year, a day, a month, a life as being seasonal. Yes those wondrous full fertile times come in their fabulous blaze of colour and light. But those times do not alone define us, and it is the other times – the times when the wheel is on the descent that the belief in the ebb and flow really can help us. We need those descents and we need the fallow. We need the darkness of winter within ourselves when the matter of our souls lie dormant – just as winter retreats and returns to source.

That is the time for rest, for plans to be made and for the storing of energy for the coming of Spring within us, which will always arrive. Nature is never late and always comes when she is ready to do so. We should see ourselves in just that way too and grace ourselves with the knowledge that no matter how bleak those winter moments are… this too shall pass … and we will rise, just like the sleeping shoots or the resting ferns.

And that’s kind of where I am now. It’s been a busy time of pushing through with plans, bringing them to fruition and finally to blossom. It’s only when I look back I can see how much I have put into it and what I have done to make those plans abundant and come to pass.

And as with anything – I need the time to assimilate the changes I have encountered through the process of learning. Learning is only such if we allow ourselves to be changed and shaped because of them. Otherwise all we have is facts. So this break, this rest, gives me time to see myself in light of these changes and to embed those new parts of me into future plans that I am already beginning to dream. ✨🍃🍃